I love reds so much but I also have dark brown hair, almost black… You honestly wont be able to get a red like that unless you lighten your hair which would involve bleaching. You could get a dark red with your hair without any bleaching tho. I have a deep burgundy hair color so let me just warn you that it is A LOT of upkeep. It fades very fast so you will need to have it dyed often! GL!

@Navy_Wife: Hmm I think it was maybe Herbal Essences? It was a while ago. You might want to go check out the red dyes in the drugstore, a lot of them have brown ‘before’ pictures on the side to give you an idea of how the color will develop. I didn’t go too red with mine, you could only really tell in the light but I think you can get redder with at home stuff.

Go to Sally’s and look at the Loreal Highlights for dark hair only. It’s a group of red dyes that are designed for dark hair, to deposit bright red color without bleaching! There are youtube videos on how to get bright red hair without bleaching if you want to look at some. The loreal colors differ from fire engine red to more natural looking auburns, so I would check those out for sure! 🙂

@Navy_Wife: I am a dark brunette and I get red streaks the same color as that photo plus an additional burgundy put in my hair every two months. I have never had my hair lightened and it cuts through my dark brown very easily.

Here is what I learned.

1). Red is the hardest color to do properly and doesn’t last as long as any other dye. I would highly recommend a professional job, especially this close to your wedding (July 15th right?).

2). Once you do have your red hair make sure to use color safe shampoo and conditioner (I highly recommend either Pureoloy or Redken). Using normal shampoo will drastically reduce the life of your red and turn it a faded coppery color.

DEFINITELY go to a salon, at least the first time so you have some idea of how it’ll turn out. I’ve dyed my own hair a darker auburn before, but when I recently went RED, I went to the salon to have it done. Imo, the margin of error for going red the first time is too wide for me to be comfortable doing it at home.

I’m a natural blonde. I’ve been dying my hair red since I was 14. I started using L’Oreal Casting ColorSpa in Redwood (26) but I haven’t been able to find it in years. I use Feria now and bounce between colours. I vary between Ruby Fusion (66), Cardinal (67) and Ruby Rush (R68). Ruby Rush is my favourite, it’s from their “Power Reds” collection and it’s super vivid. It comes with a tube of what looks like red food colouring to add to the mix. I joke that it’s my “Little Mermaid” colour. It bleeds on EVERYTHING though, so invest in some dark towels and pillow cases if you decide to go that route. The other ones aren’t as bad.